Space City Scribes

By Margaret Lea Sydney Dunlap is speaking at our April 13th meeting (Tracy Gee Community Center and online both). She will talk about “Middle Grade Musts: Highlighting Elements That Will Make Your Story Shine.” Below is my email interview with Sydney. Also, check out her website at sydneydunlap.com .  1) Tell us about your writing journey.  My grandmother gave me a journal when I was eight, and it sat empty for a while. Then one day I wrote a poem in it, followed by a little story, and I gradually discovered that I loved writing. That eventually led to creative writing electives in high school and college and some writing courses at the grad level for continuing ed credits while I taught elementary school. I also joined SCBWI (all the way back in the early 2000s) and had a lot of fun getting involved with my local chapter, the Mid-Atlantic region, taking part in a writer’s group, attending craft-focused writing workshops/retreats, and serving as our conference co-chair for sev...

      By Margaret Lea Hi everyone! You don’t want to miss Susan Johnston Taylor at our next chapter meeting on March 2, 2026 . Her presentation is titled “Persevering Past Rejection: Tools and Tips to Save Your Sanity.” This topic should resonate with all of us, writers and illustrators alike.       Here’s Susan’s first tip— Don’t jump into the “query   trenches,” as so many people call it. Go on a “query quest” instead. Look on querying as an adventure, not a time of being shot at, bombed, and surrounded by death and destruction. Yep, query quest sounds like a much more fun place to hang out!      It took Susan seven years and over 400 queries before she found her agent, Mara Cobb at Lighthouse Literary, even though Susan had already sold two picture books to a publisher. Her debut Animals in Surprising Shades: Poems about Earth’s Colorful Creatures came out in 2023 and has won numerous awards. Her ...

By  Margaret Lea        Growing up, Kristen Kiesling would watch a crime show and want to be a detective or watch a medical drama and want to be a doctor. Her dad owned a commercial greenhouse in a rural setting, and Kristen thought, even back then, that a compost pile full of worms would be a great place to hide a dead body. She grew up near Tulsa, OK but now lives in Katy and is part of our Houston SCBWI chapter.       Kristen heard her fair share of, “You should be a writer,” from teachers throughout the years, but she didn’t see how that could be a viable career, so she got a business degree at University of Oklahoma and worked for IBM. She took a few years off when her kids were born, then got her teaching certification and taught 3rd grade for a couple of years. She has since stopped teaching full time but misses interacting with the kids. She recently became involved with WITS— Writers in the Schools— where she enjo...

  By  Margaret Lea         Many of you already know Julie Hedlund, our January, 2026 speaker. Not only is she a picture book author, she started and runs the 12 X 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge, which helps writers complete a new picture book every month. She began the group in 2012 and had planned for it to be just one year, but it took off and now has about 2,000 members.      Shortly after her first two books came out, Julie applied and was accepted into a bootcamp run by her picture book hero, the legendary Jane Yolen. This bootcamp took place at Jane’s home in Massachusetts. Each of the ten or so attendees brought two works-in-progress for Jane to critique.       As Julie happened to be the first to arrive, she got the first critique. Jane’s daughter, Heidi Stemple, ushered Julie into a room where Jane was sitting in front of a window. Rays of sunlight created a halo effect around Jane, enhanc...